There was a time when the United States sent missionaries to Africa. Today, with the shortage of priests, it is the U.S. that is the beneficiary of many great Catholic priests from the continent of Africa – so the American Catholic Church has a vested interest in seeing that Africa remains Catholic.

EWTN’s Regional Manager for Africa George Wirnkar says EWTN is “a light in the darkness!”

George Wirnkar, EWTN’s Regional Manager in Africa, was at EWTN’s headquarters last week. He reports that, in contrast to many European countries, the Catholic churches in Africa are full. Unfortunately, there is no time for the Church to rest on its laurels!

Says Wirnkar: “I was at a monastery clinic in Togo and two girls there brought out a suitcase with contraceptives. They were almost all expired. We took pictures. It was funded by [money from a non-African government].

“In the Republic of Benin, I saw 4×4 trucks bringing in contraceptives – when they don’t have treatments for malaria! Malaria kills more people in Africa than HIV.”

Wirnkar says a lot of money is coming in from different sources to promote “lifestyles: abortion, contraception, homosexual.”

But there is a light in the darkness.

“I met a young lady at a funeral Mass. She was wearing an EWTN pin [and I commented on it]. She said, with a sense of pride, ‘My boss went for training at EWTN.’ If you get something so good coming out of America, then people want to identify with it.

“We used to think of everything coming out of America as left wing, rotten, and immoral. People used to be very suspicious of things coming from here, but we have established our brand well so there is no doubt about what we stand for. EWTN is a beacon of light in this world of darkness.”